Road Warrior: Living wth an inscrutable giant

Port Authority police and maintenance crews removing traffic cones to reopen all lanes and tollbooths at the entrance to the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee.

If you were imprisoned in your own car for two hours or so each morning this week as you tried to cross the George Washington Bridge, you’ll be happy to know that the river-crossing gods have finally issued a reprieve.

Shortly after 8 a.m. on Friday, Port Authority police removed the orange cones that had shrunk access to the bridge from Fort Lee streets — a maneuver that clogged traffic for five consecutive mornings because two of three tollbooths were shut down. Then, as if by magic, the changes were reversed.

"We just got a phone call saying that the Port Authority was lifting the plan," said Fort Lee Police Chief Keith Bendul.

Plan? What was this ill-conceived "plan" all about?

It turns out that the week of gridlock that made adults late for work, forced kids to get up an hour or so early to reach school on time, and diverted local police from emergencies, amounted to a "study," explained an agency spokesman, Steve Coleman.

"The Port Authority has conducted a week of study at the … bridge of traffic-safety patterns," Coleman said in an email. "We will now review those results and determine the best traffic patterns. ... We’ll continue to work with our local law enforcement partners."

Answers to basic follow-up questions: What was the goal? Who authorized this plan? And why didn’t the Port Authority publicly warn motorists about it? — were met with stone-cold silence.

Silence and evasiveness are often usual responses when you live with a giant. As a bi-state agency, the Port Authority sometimes doesn’t answer state or federal lawmakers either — about political rationales for hiring cronies, for example, or virtually giving away naming rights, or raising tolls that will soon rise again.

Not always, though.

The agency can be quick to announce coming changes in traffic patterns when road work on either side of the Hudson is expected to cause delays. Sometimes the Port is mistaken, as it was in July 2012, when it insisted that a major road repair project on the New York side would cause three months of backups. The delays were modest at best, but unlike this week, at least the agency took preventive action back then.

It did so, too, a year earlier when a dearth of toll collectors at the Outerbridge Crossing led to backups similar to this week’s congestion in Fort Lee. That’s when the new Port Authority chairman at the time — an appointee of Governor Christie — complained angrily about the tie-ups. The executive director, a New York appointee, issued a public apology. In due time, he was replaced.

No apology this year, though — at least not yet.

The Fort Lee delays are cast only as a "plan" — a "study" that will be "reviewed."

The Port Authority has always been a strange operation, accountable only to the governors of New Jersey and New York.

It was designed to improve the regional economy largely through transportation projects that include airports, bridges, tunnels, skyscrapers, garages and more. Few states rival its economic might, yet it’s an amalgam of two unique states whose dissimilar cultures and politics can sometimes produce bizarre results, especially when one governor is a Democrat and the other is a Republican, and each insists he’s going to clean up a bureaucracy run amok — his way.

So, while they cooperate on hated issues like toll hikes, Christie’s people are looking over the shoulders of the New York staffers and Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s people are keeping a close eye on his partner’s operatives in New Jersey, while each governor doles out favors and discipline to the locals.

This byzantine climate is made for rumors. Did the Fort Lee mayor — a Democrat — break some sort of implied agreement by not supporting the latest round of toll hikes?

Is the bi-state giant meddling too much in the little borough’s affairs? Is Fort Lee negotiating reasonably over joint issues like law enforcement, street-cleaning and snow removal?

And if any of this rings true, was this week’s gridlock some sort of vindictive political payback? Or was it an example of another administrative misstep? Or just one of those bright ideas that turned too ugly to face head on?

Nobody’s saying much for the record, and if Fort Lee’s chief executive is correct, all sides aren’t communicating much with one another either.

"I have great respect for the Port Authority," said Mayor Mark Sokolich. "But sometimes you do things that have an unforeseen effect in other areas. So I’m not sure what happened."